Chapter 6: The Declaration of Independence Guiding Question ...

Chapter 6: The Declaration of Independence
Guiding Question: What principles of government are expressed in the Declaration of
Independence?
6.1 Introduction
As you read in Chapter 5, the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord marked a turning point for
the colonies. The day after the clashes, horseback riders galloped through the colonies with news
of Britain’s “barbarous murders” of innocent militiamen. Most Americans were deeply shocked
by the news. More urgently than ever before, they debated what the colonies should do about the
trouble with Great Britain.
The choices were clear enough. The colonies could declare their independence—a course that
would surely lead to war. Or they could continue with protests and petitions. This choice would
keep the colonies at peace, but at what cost to the colonists’ freedom?
No one was more outspoken in his support for independence than Patrick Henry of Virginia.
After the passage of the Intolerable Acts, Henry delivered to the Virginia House of Burgesses one
of the most famous speeches in American history.
“There is no room for hope,” Henry began. “If we wish to be free…we must fight! Our chains
are forged. Their clanking can be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable—and let it
come!”
Then Henry spoke to those who treasured peace above freedom:
“Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun.
The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding
arms!… What is it that gentlemen wish?…Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be
purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what
course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
Despite the passionate words of Patriots like Patrick Henry, most colonists remained reluctant
(hesitant) rebels. As you will read in this chapter, only after war had already started did the
colonies decide to declare their independence.
Key Vocabulary
• traitor: a person guilty of the crime of treason, or disloyalty to the government

6.2 The War Begins
On May 10, 1775, the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. By then, New England
militia had massed around Boston. The first question facing Congress was who should command
this “New England Army.” The obvious answer was a New Englander.
George Washington and the Continental Army John Adams of Massachusetts had another idea.
He proposed that Congress create a “continental army” made up of troops from all the colonies.
To lead this army, Adams nominated “a gentleman whose skill as an officer, whose…great talents
and universal character would…unite…the colonies better than any other person alive.” That
man was George Washington of Virginia.
The delegates agreed. They unanimously elected Washington to be commander-in-chief of the
new Continental Army.
The Battle of Bunker Hill
Meanwhile, militiamen near Boston made plans to fortify two hills that overlooked the city—
Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill. On the night of June 16, Israel Putnam led a few hundred men up
Breed’s Hill. In four hours of furious digging, they erected a crude fort on the top of the hill.
The fort worried British general William Howe, who had just arrived from England with fresh
troops. Howe ordered an immediate attack. Under a hot June sun, some 2,000 redcoated troops
formed two long lines at the base of Breed’s Hill. At Howe’s order, they marched up the slope.
As the lines moved ever closer, Putnam ordered his men, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of
their eyes.” Only when the British were almost on top of them did the militiamen pull their
triggers. The red lines broke and fell back in confusion.
The British regrouped and attacked again. Once more the Americans stopped their advance. On
their third attack, the redcoats finally took the hill—but only because the Americans had used up
all their gunpowder and pulled back.
This clash, which was misnamed the Battle of Bunker Hill, was short but very bloody. More than
1,000 British troops were killed or wounded, and nearly half that many Americans. British and
Americans alike knew that this was no small skirmish on a village green. A war had begun.

6.3 The Siege of Boston
A week later, George Washington took command of his new army. He found “a mixed multitude
of people…under very little discipline, order, or government.” Washington worked hard to
impose order. One man wrote, “Everyone is made to know his place and keep in it… . It is
surprising how much work has been done.”
Ticonderoga
A month later, a dismayed Washington learned that the army had only 36 barrels of gunpowder—
enough for each soldier to fire just nine shots. To deceive the British, Washington started a rumor
in Boston that he had 1,800 barrels of gunpowder—more than he knew what to do with! Luckily,
the British swallowed this tall tale. Meanwhile, Washington sent desperate letters to the colonies
begging for gunpowder.
Washington got his powder. But he still did not dare attack the British forces in Boston. To do
that he needed artillery—heavy guns, such as cannons—to bombard their defenses. In
desperation, Washington sent a Boston bookseller named Henry Knox to Fort Ticonderoga to
round up some big guns.
Ticonderoga was an old British fort located at the southern end of Lake Champlain in New York.
A few months earlier, militiamen led by Ethan Allen and Benjamin Arnold had seized the fort.
The Americans had little use for the run-down fort, but its guns would prove priceless.
As winter set in, Knox loaded 59 cannons onto huge sleds and dragged them 300 miles to
Boston. Knox’s 42 sleds also carried 2,300 pounds of lead for future bullets. Boston was about to
be put under siege.
The British Abandon Boston
On March 4, 1776, the British soldiers in Boston awoke to a frightening sight. The night before,
the ridges of nearby Dorchester Heights had been bare. Now they bristled with cannons, all
aimed on the city.
Rather than risk another bloodbath, General Howe abandoned the city. Within days, more than a
hundred ships left Boston Harbor for Canada. The ships carried 9,000 British troops as well as
1,100 Loyalists who preferred to leave their homes behind rather than live with rebels.
Some Americans hoped the war was over. Washington, however, knew that it was only
beginning.

6.4 Toward Independence
Nearly a year passed between the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord and the British retreat
from Boston. During that time, there was little talk of independence. Most colonists still
considered themselves loyal British subjects. Their quarrel was not with Great Britain itself, but
with its policies toward the colonies.
The Olive Branch Petition
Many Americans pinned their hopes for peace on King George. In July 1775, Congress sent a
petition to George III asking him to end the quarrel. John Adams called the petition an “olive
branch,” because olive tree branches are an ancient symbol of peace.
By the time the petition reached London, however, the king had declared the colonies to be in
“open and avowed rebellion.” He ordered his ministers “to bring the traitors to justice.”
Being called a traitor was enough to change the mind of one of Washington’s generals. The
general confessed that he had long “looked with some degree of horror on the scheme of
separation.” Now he agreed with Patrick Henry that “we must be independent or slaves.”
Common Sense
Many colonists, however, still looked with “horror” at the idea of independence. Then, early in
1776, a Patriot named Thomas Paine published a fiery pamphlet entitled Common Sense. Paine
scoffed at the idea that Americans owed any loyalty to King George.
“Of more worth is one honest man to society,” he wrote, “than all the crowned ruffians who ever
lived.”
Paine also attacked the argument that the colonies’ ties to Britain had benefited Americans. Just
the opposite was true, he said. American trade had suffered under British control. Americans had
also been hurt by being dragged into Britain’s European wars.
Paine ended with a vision of an independent America as a homeland of liberty. “Ye that love
mankind!” he urged. “Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!… The
sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.”
Within a few months, more than 120,000 copies of Common Sense were printed. Paine’s
arguments helped persuade thousands of colonists that independence was not only sensible, but
the key to a brighter future.
Fast Fact
• Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense persuaded many colonists to support
independence.

6.5 Thomas Jefferson Drafts a Declaration
A few weeks after the British left Boston, the Continental Congress appointed a committee to
write a declaration, or formal statement, of independence. The task of drafting the declaration
went to the committee’s youngest member, 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. A shy man,
Jefferson said little in Congress. But he spoke brilliantly with his pen.
Jefferson’s job was to explain to the world why the colonies were choosing to separate from
Britain. “When in the course of human events,” he began, if one people finds it necessary to
break its ties with another, “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind” requires that they
explain their actions.
Natural Rights
Jefferson’s explanation was simple, but revolutionary. Loyalists had argued that colonists had a
duty to obey the king, whose authority came from God. Jefferson reasoned quite differently. All
people are born equal in God’s sight, he began, and all are entitled to the same basic rights. In
Jefferson’s eloquent words:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Governments are formed, Jefferson said, “to secure these rights.” Their power to rule comes
from “the consent of the governed.” If a government fails to protect people’s rights, “it is the
right of the people to alter or abolish it.” The people can then create a new government that will
protect “their safety and happiness.”
The King’s Crimes
King George, Jefferson continued, had shown no concern for the rights of colonists. Instead, the
king’s policies had been aimed at establishing “an absolute tyranny over these states [the
colonies].”
As proof, Jefferson included a long list of the king’s abuses. In all these actions, Jefferson
claimed, George III had shown that he was “unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
The time had come, Jefferson concluded, for the colonies’ ties to Britain to be broken. “These
United Colonies are,” he declared, “and of right ought to be, free and independent states.”
Fast Fact
• After Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin
Franklin and John Adams suggested changes.

6.6 The Final Break
On July 1, 1776, the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia’s State House to debate
independence. By noon, the temperature outside had soared into the nineties, and a thunderstorm
was gathering. Inside the State House, emotions were equally hot and stormy. By the end of the
day, the issue was still undecided.
The next day was cooler and calmer. On July 2, 12 colonies voted for independence. New York
cast no vote.
No delegate was more excited about the colonies’ decision than John Adams. He wrote to his
wife Abigail, “The second of July…will be celebrated by succeeding generations…with pomp
and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of
the continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.”
Debate over Slavery
Adams was wrong about the date that would be celebrated as America’s birthday, but only
because Congress decided to revise Jefferson’s declaration. Most of the delegates liked what they
read, except for a passage on slavery. Jefferson had charged King George with violating the
“sacred rights of life and liberty…of a distant people [by] carrying them into slavery.”
Almost no one liked this passage. Southerners feared that it might lead to demands to free the
slaves. Northerners worried that New England merchants, who profited from the slave trade,
might be offended. Even delegates who opposed slavery felt that it was unfair to blame the king
for enslaving Africans. The passage was struck out.
Independence Day
On July 4, the delegates approved a final version of the Declaration of Independence. One by
one, they stepped forward to sign it. In doing so, they pledged to support independence with “our
lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
This was a serious pledge. Every signer knew that he was committing an act of treason against
Great Britain. If the new “United States of America” failed to win its freedom, each of them
could end up swinging from a hangman’s rope. Knowing this, Benjamin Franklin told the
delegates, “We must all hang together. Or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
Fast Fact
• Slavery was not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence because the slave trade was
important to the economy of many of the colonies. In a triangular trade, rum and iron were
shipped from New England to West Africa. In West Africa, these products were exchanged for
slaves. Then the slaves were taken to the West Indies (Caribbean), where they were traded for
molasses and sugar. Finally, the molasses and sugar were brought back to New England.

6.7 Chapter Summary
In this chapter, you read how the American colonies took the dramatic step of declaring their
independence. You used a visual metaphor to describe the key historic events that led up to the
Declaration of Independence. Soon after the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord, the struggle
with Great Britain turned into all-out war. The Second Continental Congress elected George
Washington as the head of the Continental Army. After the bloody Battle of Bunker Hill,
American troops threatened the city of Boston with heavy guns. The British decided to abandon
the city.
The failure of the Olive Branch Petition, and Thomas Paine’s eloquent pamphlet, Common
Sense, moved the colonies closer to a declaration of independence. Thomas Jefferson, a delegate
to the Second Continental Congress, was selected to write a draft of the declaration.
On July 4, 1776, the delegates took their lives in their hands by signing the Declaration of
Independence. For the first time in history, a government was being established on the basis of
the natural rights of people and the duty of government to honor those rights.
But independence could not be won with words alone. As you will read in the next chapter, the
colonies now faced the challenge of winning a war against the most powerful nation in the
world.
Fifty-six men signed the Declaration of Independence. Who were they, and what happened to
them?
As a group, the signers were wealthy and well educated. Twenty-four were lawyers or judges.
Eleven were merchants. Nine were farmers or plantation owners.
The signers pledged their lives to defend the Declaration. Many paid dearly for that promise.
Carter Braxton, a wealthy planter and trader from Virginia, lost his ships to the British navy
during the war. After selling his home and property to pay his debts, he died in rags.
Late in the war, Thomas Nelson, Jr. saw his home taken over by the British as a headquarters
before a major battle. He told General Washington to open fire on the house. Nelson’s home was
destroyed, and he died a poor man.
Francis Lewis and John Hart lost more than their homes and property. The British put Lewis’s
wife in jail, and she died shortly after. Hart lived in forests and caves for more than a year after
fleeing the British. When he returned, his wife was dead and his 13 children were nowhere to be
found. Saddened and exhausted, he died a few weeks later.
Twelve of the signers had their homes burned. Five were captured by the British and tortured
before they died. Nine died from wounds or hardships suffered during the war. The sons of two
signers were killed while serving in the army.
Thousands of other women and men, both famous and forgotten, suffered terrible losses during
the war with Britain. Like the signers of the Declaration of Independence, they pledged all they
cared about to the cause that united them.